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In Our Time

3.8 of 5 stars 3.80 · rating details · 7,994 ratings · 377 reviews

THIS COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES AND VIGNETTES MARKED ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S AMERICAN DEBUT AND MADE HIM FAMOUS

When In Our Time was published in 1925, it was praised by Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald for its simple and precise use of language to convey a wide range of complex emotions, and it earned Hemingway a place beside Sherwood Anderson and Ge...more

Paperback, 160 pages

Published 2003 by Scribner (first published 1924)

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Jun 02, 2007 Jenny Napolitano rated it 3 of 5 stars

Any review I write here is going to make me sound stupid. Somehow I left it not really having enjoyed it, but having renewed my appreciation for Hemingway's writing (though not necessarily his skills of positioning stories in a collection - even though I'm still not convinced that's the best word to describe this).

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Feb 19, 2010 Eric rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ficciones, great-war, malick-should-film-it

I wish I’d been assigned this in high school. At 17 I was mad for Lorca, and would have loved Hemingway’s gory sportsman’s sketches—

Inside on a wooden bunk lay a young Indian woman. She had been trying to have her baby for two days. All the old women in the camp had been helping her. The men had moved off up the road to sit in the dark and smoke cut of range of the noise she made. She screamed just as Nick and the two Indians followed his father and Uncle George into the shanty. She lay in the l...more

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Apr 13, 2009 Brad rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-story, faves, hemingway

As I am now part of an Ernest Hemingway Short Story book club, I will write reviews of the stories that strike my fancy and add them to the books from whence they came.

Cat in the Rain -- This story represents one of my favourite aspects of Hemingway's work -- his simplicity.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, superfluous in Cat in the Rain. Every word is purposefully placed for its ability to invoke emotion or conjure an image. Reading Cat in the Rain can transport you to another time and pla...more

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Mar 02, 2012 Deslni01 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, classic, short, stories

In 1925, a relatively unknown World War I veteran named Ernest Hemingway released a collection of short stories entitled In Our Time. This new author was a treat to the readers, as he wrote with a style very different than what the readers were accustomed to. Instead of long, flowing prose, Hemingway's stories were written in short, declarative sentences, with an oblique style of emotions for the characters. This new minimalist approach to literature would become one of the greatest changes in l...more In 1925, a relatively unknown World War I veteran named Ernest Hemingway released a collection of short stories entitled In Our Time. This new author was a treat to the readers, as he wrote with a style very different than what the readers were accustomed to. Instead of long, flowing prose, Hemingway's stories were written in short, declarative sentences, with an oblique style of emotions for the characters. This new minimalist approach to literature would become one of the greatest changes in literary style, influencing the entire literary scene until - and much past - World War II. [return][return]The book consists of many short stories, separated by short vignettes. Many of the short stories contain the character Nick Adams, initially a young boy learning about death in the company of his father who is a doctor. Then, he begins growing up. He has relationships with young women and great friends. These stories are divided by very short vignettes portraying the violence and emotions suffered in World War I. Very notable is Chapter VII,[return][return]...he lay very flat and sweated and prayed oh jesus christ get me out of here. Dear jesus please get me out. Christ please please please christ. If you'll only keep me from getting killed I'll do anything you say...Please please dear jesus...The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rossa about Jesus. And he never told anybody.[return][return]The Nick Adams stories come to a close at the end of the book with the two part Big Two-Hearted River, which shows an older, more mature Nick Adams, returned from the war and returning to the calming lifestyle of his youth by camping and fly-fishing in an amazingly described river and meadow.[return][return]In Our Time set the stage for Ernest Hemingway to become one of the most influential writers (some would argue he was the most influential) of the twentieth century. His short, terse, masculine prose would set the literary world on fire and paved the way for Hemingway's other masterpieces, including The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea. In Our Time is an excellent introductory work to the writing of Hemingway and is a classic sure to be enjoyed by many.(less)

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Mar 29, 2013 Ms. Ramsborg rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: traditional-literature

In Our Time
Lexile: Not Found

I like Ernest Hemingway’s clear, crisp writing style and several of his books, but this collection of short stories was not my favorite. The stories were often confusing because relationships between characters were unclear or the settings were not defined. A book review that I read stated that Hemingway purposely wrote the stories in a confusing manner to reflect the confusion of the World War I time period.

The stories I liked best were about relationships because t...more

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Dec 15, 2012 Thomas Tyrer rated it 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes when I'm struggling to decide upon a new book, I will go back to the classics, and you can't do any better than Hemingway for clarity of thought and purpose. It's sort of like a computer reboot. You purge your entire system of muddled and contorted thought and interpretation simply by picking up Hemingway and soaring through his crisp, concise prose. At the moment I picked up the book (or e-reader, I should say), I was struggling with some ideas about values that I hold particularly de...more

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Dec 09, 2012 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I picked this up at the Storrs library in Longmeadow because it's on the reading list of a Yale American Studies course I'm auditing the class since it's available as part of Yale's online open course offerings. Like many people my age, I read The Old Man and the Sea in high school (and once or twice after that). I read The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast for a course in Point Park College (now "University," but it will always be "College" to me). And I read The Snows of Kilimanjaro once or...more I picked this up at the Storrs library in Longmeadow because it's on the reading list of a Yale American Studies course I'm auditing the class since it's available as part of Yale's online open course offerings. Like many people my age, I read The Old Man and the Sea in high school (and once or twice after that). I read The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast for a course in Point Park College (now "University," but it will always be "College" to me). And I read The Snows of Kilimanjaro once or twice years ago for no reason other than I wanted to. This book, I learned in one of the course's earliest lectures, was Hemingway's book-length American publication debut and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading really good writing, has an interest in the history of American literature or both.

The other thing that I've picked up in the two online lectures that I've taken in thus far is that Hemingway really felt this was all of a piece. What might seem like an anthology of short stories with brief chapter vignettes capriciously interspersed in between each is actually something he saw as an organized whole. So I'd avoid any temptation to read it out of order and I'd encourage you to think about how the vignettes (none of them longer than a page, if my memory serves) link with stories and how every piece links with the other and makes a whole and, just maybe, something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

I finished the book today and enjoyed all that I read but was exhilarated--in a way that I can't yet quite articulate--by the last two Nick Adams' short stories (Big Two-Hearted River: Part I and Big Two-Hearted River: Part II) that, except for the wraparound chapter vignettes, conclude the book. Not too soon after, I picked up my copy of The Sun Also Rises and read the first chapter. I can readily see a difference in confidence, control and--not so much economy, but--concentrated meaning in the writing of The Sun Also Rises versus In Our Time. That said, if you've not yet read In Our Time, you should give it a go. To use a bit of a hackneyed phrase, Hemingway is "deceptively simple." And thinking about any one of the segments of writing in this book and about how they relate to the whole just might reveal to you how much much more is there than initially meets the eye. (less)

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Jun 27, 2012 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

It seems a little presumptuous to be reviewing classics, but I recently discovered Open University, an IPad App that lets you “attend” university lectures. The class I chose was a literature class at Yale. The books have been awesome even though the lectures put me to sleep. I mean that literally. The professor’s voice is so smoothing that I fall to sleep holding my Ipad.

At any rate, Hemingway’s In Our Time is amazing. The most striking thing about this book is the structure. This book is a coll...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Aaron rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was my first experience with Hemingway. I remember reading of how Hemingway and Faulkner fought over writing styles. I sided with Faulkner, due to word extinction. I was yet shocked at the simplicity of Hemingway's prose; and yet, I could not deny there was something there, some dark force just under the surface that led you along.

I think people have fun reading Hemingway and adding their own conclusions about that darkness just under the surface. For instance, in "On the Quai At Smyrna" wa...more This was my first experience with Hemingway. I remember reading of how Hemingway and Faulkner fought over writing styles. I sided with Faulkner, due to word extinction. I was yet shocked at the simplicity of Hemingway's prose; and yet, I could not deny there was something there, some dark force just under the surface that led you along.

I think people have fun reading Hemingway and adding their own conclusions about that darkness just under the surface. For instance, in "On the Quai At Smyrna" was it the most humane thing for the Greeks to break the forelegs of all the animals they couldn't take with them and let them drown in shallow water? Was it a pleasant business? It was a way of coping with experience.

In "Indian Camp" I found two things of interest: (1. Nick's father, the doctor, said he doesn't hear screams because the aren't important. This is not a doctor I'm not sure I would like to be under the care of. Does empathy play a part in being a good physician? On the other hand, I rather have a cold but sure hand rather than an empathetic one. Both would be nice. Something is lacking in the former. (2. Why did the Indian father kill himself when it was that the doctor was there to deliver his baby? Perhaps his foot-wound was something he felt would not heal properly. Can we be sure it was suicide? How many people kill themselves by cutting their own throats?

"The Doctor And The Doctor's Wife" reveals that the doctor isn't keen on fighting, is a thief in denial, and that his wife is a Christian Scientist. The latter reveals the likely catalyst of much of Nick's problems.

"The End of Something" was the end of Nick's childhood and the beginning of the years of confusion.

"The Three Day Blow" shows us that Nick turns to alcohol for answers.

"The Battler" is Nick's initiation into manhood.

"Cross Country Snow" could be said to be a tale of freedom verses entrapment, which results in resignation.

"My Old Man" is another man not unlike the doctor—a good man, but dishonest—a paradoxical disappointment.

"Big Two Hearted River" was Nick, at home, in his own environment. It was, I believe, an attempt to disassociate, withdraw, and become self-sufficient. The swamps will be the undoing of Nick. It will be his greatest time of learning.(less)

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Jun 02, 2012 Will English rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-ve-reviewed

I rarely step out of my reading comfort zone. And I was really hesitant to pick up In Our Time. But I was looking to expand my literary horizons and this book was close to hand. I knew who Hemingway was before reading this, but I had never read any of his work (not by choice anyway) and I had no desire too before. So it came as a surprise when I bit the bullet and did. When I first read it, I hated it.

But now, many years later, I have very conflicting opinions about this book and Hemingway in g...more I rarely step out of my reading comfort zone. And I was really hesitant to pick up In Our Time. But I was looking to expand my literary horizons and this book was close to hand. I knew who Hemingway was before reading this, but I had never read any of his work (not by choice anyway) and I had no desire too before. So it came as a surprise when I bit the bullet and did. When I first read it, I hated it.

But now, many years later, I have very conflicting opinions about this book and Hemingway in general. On the one hand I love how complex and deep his characters are. And his writing style, while short and choppy, is surprisingly very effective when it comes to portraying strong emotions. The old saying goes "Less is more" and Hemingway embodies that to the fullest. Its short and quick but expressive. My favorite story in this collection is 'The Battler', a story about a train stowaway who shares an evening with with a former boxing champion (who is half-crazy) and his companion. Its hard for me expression what I like about it. It just has this surreal atmosphere that sucks you in, and the way Hemingway portrays the boxer is one that both scary and yet sympathetic. Scary because the boxer is unpredictable (he's content one moment then enraged the next), and sympathetic because deep down he's just a sad and confused misfit who screwed his life up and doesn't know what to do with himself.

On the other hand though, while Hemingway's style is his greatest strength, its also his greatest weakness. His prose's leaves way too much to the imagination and that can confuse and alienate readers. He also doesn't give us much direct insight into what his characters are thinking, preferring instead to let their actions and dialogue show what they are thinking. When I first read this I had no clue that that was what he was doing. And the narrator's voice is so bloody wooden and BORING that it literally put me to sleep. And more than once I considered throwing it away.

But what really turned me off is just how depressing as hell this book is. I can understand putting all your pain into a story, you'd have to be inhuman to filter it out. But Hemingway takes it WAAY to far. Every story shows the negative side of life. There's no happiness, or very little of it. Every character is cosmically depressed about something or is faced with such an impossible situation that they can't see any other way out. I understand that Hemingway and other authors of his day were trying to be gritty and realistic to the point of insanity. But what they failed to realize themselves was that life isn't gloom and doom all the time. It never has been and it never will be. Painting it that way makes just your work melodramatic (for lack of a better term).

But to be fair, the stories in this book were not meant to be entertainment, so much as they were an outlet for the author's own personal problems and fears. Hemingway was chronically depressed for most of his life and he was also an alcoholic, and that comes out in his work.

But despite all that, I did eventually end up enjoying the book, even if I didn't realize it at the time. In Our Time is one of those books that leaves a sonic boom. The emotions it portrays stays with you and makes you think even after you've put the book back on the shelf.

This is not a book for everyone by any means, I wouldn't even recommend it to 90% of my friends. But it definitely deserves its reputation as one of the great works of literature. If you can stomach all the flaws then go for it. Otherwise stay away. (less)

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Dec 22, 2010 Pam rated it 4 of 5 stars

I’ve read a lot of Hemingway but I’ve always stayed away from In Our Time since I’m generally, not a short story fan. Hemingway’s voice, however, does lend itself to exploration through smaller vignettes even though For Whom the Bell Tolls, his longest book, is my true favorite.

I really can’t believe that this was his first published work. I mean, it is truly so, well, him. The most impressive or, really comforting, thing for me about the stories included in In Our Time was the similarity to the...more

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Nov 19, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Milt's favorite Hemingway book.

"No writer has been more efficiently overshadowed by his imitators than Ernest Hemingway. From the moment he unleashed his stripped-down, declarative sentences on the world, he began breeding entire generations of miniature Hemingways, who latched on to his subtractive style without ever wondering what he'd removed, or why. And his tendency to lapse into self-parody during the latter half of his career didn't help matters. But In Our Time, which Hemingway published...more Milt's favorite Hemingway book.

"No writer has been more efficiently overshadowed by his imitators than Ernest Hemingway. From the moment he unleashed his stripped-down, declarative sentences on the world, he began breeding entire generations of miniature Hemingways, who latched on to his subtractive style without ever wondering what he'd removed, or why. And his tendency to lapse into self-parody during the latter half of his career didn't help matters. But In Our Time, which Hemingway published in 1925, reminds us of just how fresh and accomplished his writing could be--and gives at least an inkling of why Ezra Pound could call him the finest prose stylist in the world.
In his first commercially published book (following the small-press appearance of Three Stories and Ten Poems in 1924), Hemingway was still wearing his influences on his sleeve. The vignettes between each story smack of Gertrude Stein, whose minimalist punctuation and clodhopping rhythms he was happy to borrow. "My Old Man" sounds like Huck Finn on the Grand Tour: "Well, we went to live at Maisons-Lafitte, where just about everybody lives except the gang at Chantilly, with a Mrs. Meyers that runs a boarding house. Maisons is about the swellest place to live I've ever seen in all my life." But in the "The Battler" or "Indian Camp" or "Big Two-Hearted River," Hemingway finds his own voice, shunning the least hint of rhetorical inflation and sticking to just the facts, ma'am. His reluctance to traffic in high-flown abstraction has often been chalked up to postwar disillusion--as though he were too much of a simpleton to make deliberate stylistic decisions. Still, nobody can read "Soldier's Home" without drawing a certain connection between the two. Returning home to Oklahoma, the hero finds that his tales of combat are now a bankrupt genre:

Even his lies were not sensational at the pool room. His acquaintances, who had heard detailed accounts of German women found chained to machine guns in the Argonne forest and who could not comprehend, or were barred by their patriotism from interest in, any German machine gunners who were not chained, were not thrilled by his stories.
If we are to believe Michael Reynolds and Ann Douglas, this passage reflects the author's own dreary homecoming as a member of the lost generation. It's also a fine example of a surprisingly rare phenomenon, at least at this point in his career: Hemingway being funny." --James Marcus(less)

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May 19, 2010 Prerak Patel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: english-3-ap

This book or stories was really confusing. The stories I believe were based on the theme of masculinity. All the same chapters as well as the stories had something to do with something manly like going to war, bullfighting, or going fishing. Even when there was a scene in the beginning of the novel of a women giving birth, it was more about the men than anything. Hemingway is a genius. He connected all the stories and chapters to mean something about the war or about masculinity. For example whe...more

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May 18, 2010 Basia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: independent-reading-3ap

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 20, 2009 Patrick Cowsill rated it 5 of 5 stars

Lawrence reviewed this book of short stories: "It's like smoking a cigarette, a short fast rush. Then you want another." I'm not a smoker, but I get what he's talking about. This is, in my opinion, Hemingway's best writing. The stories, about Nick Anderson, weave together to create a bigger narrative. Many later short story writers followed the pattern. In a way, Hemingway was following Shakespeare, who created a similar effect in his sonnets. You have to read many before a bigger story emerges....more

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Nov 10, 2009 Craig rated it 4 of 5 stars

The first collection of Hemingway's short fiction. If you can read past occasional sentences like: "she was sick the way sick women get sick..." the stories are well crafted and interesting. In this collection, the last two stories "Big-Hearted River I" and Big-Hearted River II" are the best. These Nick Adams stories show the readjustments necessary for a man returning home from war. Hemingway's use of setting is brilliant; his dialogue short, clipped, real. Only the final two tales approach the...more

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Aug 16, 2010 Amber Tucker rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Amber by: Brad

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Just a few things that struck me, in my response here. This book is quick on Read, long on Think. A positive attribute! But hard on the early reviewer. I know I'll feel something different coming clearer to me, any time I go back over part or all of In Our Time. For example, I'd like to re-read each chapter vignette and see how it links to the story following it. On a first read, I didn't catch a lot of flow between these parts, but I still find it an intriguing structure (and one which is well-...more Just a few things that struck me, in my response here. This book is quick on Read, long on Think. A positive attribute! But hard on the early reviewer. I know I'll feel something different coming clearer to me, any time I go back over part or all of In Our Time. For example, I'd like to re-read each chapter vignette and see how it links to the story following it. On a first read, I didn't catch a lot of flow between these parts, but I still find it an intriguing structure (and one which is well-adopted in Existence Costs ).

The series of Nick Adams stories were perhaps the easiest to relate to, for me. I was struck in the first how he "felt quite sure that he would never die." His father's just delivered a baby in an undeniably brutal fashion, and in the meantime the child's father has committed suicide. Neither the birth in such an ugly setting, nor the death, make sense to Nick, because he's still at the age and maturity level where he believes the world has to make sense. His own safe white American world does, always has. Nick turns to his father for the answers, yet even his father cannot provide satisfactory ones; his application of ostensible medical skill is grotesque, as is his attitude ("There's one for the medical journal") toward the agony he's inflicted on the Native family. There are no answers sometimes but self-delusion, and that's a theme I sensed winding through much of the book.

One of my favorite stories, for its humour, is "Mr and Mrs Elliot." There's so much bitter irony in the observation of the commonplace, weary, though officially "very happy" life of this couple. Like way too many others, they have no idea in heck what they're doing married. They "try very hard" to have a baby, and they socialize with fashionable well-traveled friends in cultured locales. Yet all they do is distract themselves; the whole story and their whole life is a stream of distractions from their disappointment with one another. It's at once very funny and very sad.

Without knowing a lot about Hemingway, I gather he was jaded with violence and war, and communicated this in some of his stories, in the depiction not of lives ended, but lives stilted. This is Krebs, of course, in "Soldier's Home." War ends and life goes on? Not so easily as that, Hemingway warns us. Krebs is quite a repugnant character, having lost all trace of ambition and strength in character. But he's also perfectly real: this is what trauma does to humans. And instead of the trauma being healed when he goes home, it only is twisted into another form because nobody around him knows how to relate.

In fact nearly all of the aforementioned vignettes are quite gory, violent, or otherwise distasteful, and I like the way these scenes of violence as it's 'traditionally' conceived subtly infuse each proceeding story, most of which we think of quite apart from such violence. Connections like this are, at least so far as I've observed, what make his writing extraordinary. It's an unflinching description of slow psychological violence, between men and within them.

Not that Hemingway flinches from anything. Admittedly, this is the first full book by him I've read. The dragging pace, the "scientific" writing style (and I have read various examples of this) doesn't always resonate powerfully with me. Still, I'll give him this. Every time Hemingway describes something, it is like the beginning of the world; every description is as though the thing & its accompanying sensations have never been described. It's crude and yet it helps you feel the edges of temporal and situational and behavioural puzzle pieces separated. Following the author's patient path of prose, you can start to re-form with greater awareness and accuracy exactly how each character, how man in general, fits into "his" world. What else, indeed, can be the purpose of writing?(less)

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Sep 20, 2012 Miss Hillis rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: semester-1-2012-2013

In Our Time is a collection of Ernest Hemingway’s early short stories. Many of the stories in this collection are his “Nick Adams Stories” which follow Adams as he grows up in rural Michigan, his early romantic entanglements, as well as his experiences healing emotionally after World War I. The stories in this collection are almost all under ten pages in length; despite their brevity, however, the stories are rich in detail despite their simplicity. Hemingway uses a laser-like focus to zero in o...more

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Sep 12, 2012 Michael Chiappini rated it 2 of 5 stars

While I understand Hemingway is important to the development of American literature and modernism in general, I find him so difficult to enjoy. I fail to see how this collection of vignettes does any work towards either representing the human condition or trying to save it. Sure, it represents people who have experienced a great deal of trauma, are living in the wasteland of post-WWI, but I feel there is little for us to glean from his minimalist style, from his unspoken emotions and words, and...more

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Mar 04, 2011 David rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, fiction

In Our Time is a collection of stories, thematically if not always directly about World War I and its influence on Hemingway and others who experienced it. It is disorienting, uncomfortable, and violent. It took me nearly half of the book to even figure out it was about the War, and that many of the stories were about the same character.

I respect the complexity of the subject, and I appreciate the way he framed the stories. Approaching the unimaginable horror of war through various metaphors: f...more

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Dec 29, 2011 A.J. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Reading this book was a part of an exercise in reexamining some of the conclusions I'd hastily drawn about authors over the years. Like most, my introduction to Hemingway came principally from two short stories, "Hills like White Elephants" and "A Clean Well Lighted Place." I still can't fathom why the first is so overwhelmingly popular, or why it cuts in line in front of better Hemingway shorts, but I'm willing to let that one go because fighting the tide is exhausting. I wouldn't call In Our T...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Veronica rated it 4 of 5 stars

In Our Time consists of 16 stories, all followed by a “chapter” or rather a paragraph describing various events from World War I. The stories mostly follow Nick Adams from boyhood to adulthood, but introduce other characters as well.

Hemingway’s mastery with the written word still astounds me. At once seemingly simplistic, his descriptives are so vivid, that he takes us to the heart of any locale without our knowing how we got there.

I’m not quite sure how to review a book of short stories so will...more In Our Time consists of 16 stories, all followed by a “chapter” or rather a paragraph describing various events from World War I. The stories mostly follow Nick Adams from boyhood to adulthood, but introduce other characters as well.

Hemingway’s mastery with the written word still astounds me. At once seemingly simplistic, his descriptives are so vivid, that he takes us to the heart of any locale without our knowing how we got there.

I’m not quite sure how to review a book of short stories so will review just two or three.

In Indian Camp, Nick joins his father and uncle as they assist an Indian woman with a difficult, possibly breech, birth. The story focuses on the surgical procedure and Nick’s observations and has little mention of the laboring woman. After the delivery, the child’s father is found dead in a bunk from a self-inflicted neck slashing which Nick also witnesses. To his questions, Nick’s father answers bluntly, yet honestly and as the trio leave, somewhat unsettled, it is with an essence of male bonding.

The End of Something juxtaposes the end of a mill town with the end of a relationship. As Nick eyes the once thriving town of Hortons Bay, he notes that only the foundation of the building remains. As he and Marjorie fish, he is sullen and after prodding, acknowledges that he has become bored with their time together. Marjorie packs up and leaves and Nick seems unsure if he did the right thing.

My Old Man is a story of a jockey and his son Joe who travel to Milan and Paris to the world of horseracing and its bright and dark sides. Joe’s father works hard at keeping in shape and shares his love of horses with his son. Needing to add to his income, some sure bets are made and reputations are called into question. A tragic fall takes horse and rider down and disparaging comments are overhead by Joe.

I think I’d rather enjoy camping and trout fishing with Mr. Hemingway. Of course, we’d make merry with some alcohol while he would span some fantastic yarns. While much was made of his life in Paris and wild safaris, I’d like to have him share some tales from the back of his ambulance.

My rating for In Our Time is a 9 out of 10.
(less)

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Aug 16, 2012 Lauren orso rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read2012

"
She laid the mirror down on the dresser and went over to the window and looked out. It was getting dark.
“I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel,” she said. “I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her.”
“Yeah?” George said from the bed.
“And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Eric Heff rated it 4 of 5 stars

In Our Time is my first look into Hemingway, which is appropriate because it is his first published American work. The short stories and the chapters all disconnected and maybe out of chronological order, but they all fit together in a weird way. The book is about war and what war turns men into but you wouldn't necessarily know that just by reading a few of the short stories. Each chapter gives a vivid image and each short story that follows seems to give a glimpse as a small instance of someth...more

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Jan 10, 2011 Elizabethh45 added it

It took me awhile to adjust to Hemingway's writing style; it wasn't the staccato sentences he uses, but more the clipped, cold manner in which he expresses emotion, i.e. there is little to none! I also didn't get the juxtaposition of the mini-chapters amid the short stories - there seemed little connection and they felt jarring...until I realized THAT is Hemingway's intent. And then I loved them. I opened to their violence and harshness, and I saw the strength in his writing about such seemingly...more

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Aug 30, 2011 Adrian rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics, shorts, war

Hemingway's ability to add layer upon layer of a single sentence never ceases to amazes me. To think that this was his first published work is even more astounding. He mastered the art saying a lot with very few words much quicker than the average author, and this collection of short stories is strung together in a fashion that makes it into one seemingly cohesive whole, and the small “chapters” that break up each of the individual pieces keep the book moving at a reasonable pace and keeps thing...more

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Sep 15, 2010 Kim rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm a fan of Hemingway's writing, his work, if not a fan of his principles (I think this might be true of a lot of women readers). That said, I'd never read this short story collection, which was apparently his first in America, although while reading it, I realized I had read many of these stories individually. As always, he counters the terse, biting style of his writing with the depth of his subject matter: violence, tragedy, loss of innocence, and World War I, which had plenty of all three....more

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Apr 20, 2012 Scott Breslove rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hmm, what to say about the book that supposedly marked Hemingway's USA debut and launched his career? Umm, it was ok. This was the first time I've ever read Hemingway, and maybe I need to talk to an English professor or something, but I don't get the allure. Eh, I guess it's not that I don't get the allure, it was a good book, I read it in one night. But I guess I just don't get what all the fuss is about. It was interesting, it was entertaining, but was it amazing, I don't think so. I remember...more

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Jun 24, 2011 Cbj rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: scenes-of-nature

I think there is a common theme that runs through these short stories. Nearly all of them are about people on a leisurely break from life. And even though they are generally having a good time, the sadness from the approaching return to ordinary life keeps creeping up into their thoughts. Or you could say they are about people experiencing happiness but they are saddened by thoughts that this happiness is only fleeting and sadness is just around the corner.

The stories with the Nick Adams charac...more

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May 02, 2013 Carrie rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you've ever seen the movie "Silver Linings Playbook," you can probably recall the scene where Bradley Cooper's character finishes A Farewell to Arms and flings it out his window, then proceeds to wake his parents up at 4 a.m. and rant about how Hemingway never ends his stories positively and how he feels he is owed an apology by him. If you've seen that, then you kind of know how I have been feeling about Hemingway lately.

I am/used to be a big fan. I loved A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Ri ...more

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About Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collec...more Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections and two non-fiction works. Three novels, four collections of short stories and three non-fiction works were published posthumously. Many of these are considered classics of American literature.

Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school he reported for a few months for The Kansas City Star, before leaving for the Italian front to enlist with the World War I ambulance drivers. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms. In 1922, he married Hadley Richardson, the first of his four wives. The couple moved to Paris, where he worked as a foreign correspondent, and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s "Lost Generation" expatriate community. The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway's first novel, was published in 1926.

After his 1927 divorce from Hadley Richardson, Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from Spanish Civil War where he had acted as a journalist, and after which he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. They separated when he met Mary Welsh in London during World War II; during which he was present at the Normandy Landings and liberation of Paris.

Shortly after the publication of The Old Man and the Sea in 1952, Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in two plane crashes that left him in pain or ill-health for much of the rest of his life. Hemingway had permanent residences in Key West, Florida, and Cuba during the 1930s and 1940s, but in 1959 he moved from Cuba to Ketchum, Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.(less)

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“Maera lay still, his head on his arms, his face in the sand. He felt warm and sticky from the bleeding. Each time he felt the horn coming. Sometimes the bull only bumped him with his head. Once the horn went all the way through him and he felt it go into the sand. Some one had the bull by the tail. They were swearing at him and flopping the cape in his face. Then the bull was gone. Some men picked Maera up and started to run with him toward the barriers through the gate out the passageway around under the grandstand to the infirmary. They laid Maera down on the cot and one of the men went out for the doctor. The others stood around. The doctor came running from the coral where he had been sewing up picador horses. He had to stop and wash his hands. There was a great shouting going on in the grandstand overhead. Maera felt everything getting larger and larger and then smaller and smaller. Then it got larger and larger and larger and then smaller and smaller. Then everything commenced to run faster and faster as when they speed up a cinematograph film. Then he was dead.” — 5 people liked it

“I’ll tell every one in the world that you are the only one that matters.” — 1 person liked it

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